shredz02 said:
Also i have a vague suspicion that you feel inadequate while around authority figures. If you truly feel youre competent then what is the worry? I believe you think you are competent but you don't totally believe in yourself. You have mixed feelings which leave me to believe that you might be insecure. is that right?
Correct me if i am wrong.....
Yes, that is correct. I feel that I am technically competent to do the work but that there are other peripheral issues about my personality that may end up conflicting with my tentative academic plan. For example, my papers and assignments invariably receive the highest marks even when I don't put in a lot of effort. I also enjoy the subject matter. However, I sometimes feel isolated or indifferent when it comes to having conversations with my professors/advisor or gathering with other students in the department at club/activity meetings and such. Every once in a great while I'll take a class that I actually participate in. There are precious few faculty members whom I feel are approachable and the rest seem too intimidating or judgmental to even converse with. The thing is, I know that they probably aren't either and that I'm just very shy or whatever. I'm in a master's program and we have to do a thesis which requires three faculty advisors. The idea of finding these appropriate experts and then having discussions with them until I know they are a good fit with my interests (which are not yet solidified at this point) is enough to give my stomach butterflies. I think I'll be able to do it... I know without a doubt I can do it intellectually (i.e. the research and writing). But at some level your ability to communicate will catch up to you in fields like this. I'm fairly confident in being able to get through a master's degree anyway, but my tentative plan for further graduate study is at this point, well, tentative at best. Much of it is probably due to my personality and being shy or having SA/SP. It is probably also attributable to other aspects of my personality: the fact that I'm incredibly indecisive and am always second guessing myself intellectually. I'm also the type of person who is prone to being lazy or irresponsible sometimes. I'm not sure if I'm serious enough about my field to go "all the way" at this point...
So in other words, it's just a big complicated mess. I'm dealing okay with it at this point, but it can be a huge distraction to all the other work I'm having to do. I once read a psychology text that categorized neuroses into three categories: 1) fear neurosis; 2) energy neurosis; 3) fear neurosis camouflaged by energy. The first type consists of people who develop an irrational fear, like fear of heights. The second type develops a neurotic emotional disorder and responds with an excess of energetic behavior. The third type involves a repression of emotions by fear, and then a subsequent repression of fear by energy. I think SA/SP might fit into a few of these categories depending on the individual, but I think I would be of the third type. There is definitely a big fear component (irrational and exaggerated fear of failure and humiliation for instance). But most of my life has consisted of my attempts to disguise the fear through energetic intellectual activity. When faced with a class presentation or discussion with a superior, I inevitably begin talking very fast, flying through my ideas as if everyone else had thought out the issue as well as I ahead of time, all with the habit of pointedly turning the discussion back to the audience or to the listener with abstruse or difficult questions which, now that I think about it, they probably often consider to be overly technical or misguided. If the situation is purely social then I'll sometimes or often avoid it. But when it comes to academic duties, even if it's painfully difficult I'll just stick it through at any cost... I'm just wondering how much longer I want to do that. I've come to consider myself fairly resilient when it comes to things like this: if I have a talk or discussion to give I will inevitably become very nervous about it far ahead of time, but I've always faced it head on. I just try my best to put my fear blinders on and walk out of it with the best attitude I can. I've just come to accept the fact that I'm not a good oral communicator (and I think my professors are sometimes surprised at the difference between my written and oral skills). If someone makes a comment like, "you need to be more confident," or "speak with more force" I just nod and think "yes, you are right," and keep on plodding my way through my work. It gets tiring after a while though.
Anyway, sorry for the length... I do think I have low self esteem when it comes to my conversational and social ability. This could also cause me to doubt my intrinsic academic talents at times.
